Saturday, February 17, 2007

Money Attitude

Does anyone read Suze Orman?

She has the general idea that if you treat money with respect, that it will come back to you. Dh and I have experienced that in the last few weeks.

We got a sizeable tax return and are going to Vegas on vacation (our first in about 8 years). We haven't done anything with the majority of the return because we aren't sure how much we're taking with us on vacation, so it's been sitting in savings.

We knew we were going to use part of it to put new tires on the truck - very badly needed. So we took the truck in today and got an estimate, went and took that amount out of savings (can I say how nice it feels to (1) have the money available to do this, and (2) pay this IN CASH? Sooooo nice...). Anyway - we got home and kind of bummed around for a couple of hours until the mail came.

A side note - a few weeks ago, we got notice from the mortgage company that we overpaid escrow last year and our payments this year would be $50/month less. (yay!) I figured they'd roll the overpaid escrow into this year. Not so! when the mail came today, we had a check from the mortgage company. Weird part? It was for ALMOST EXACTLY the same amount as the tires were costing us.

How odd is that? That this unexpected check would arrive on the SAME DAY that we decided to put the tires on - and the two amounts were only about $15 off?

(scratch head)

We haven't been dipping into that money at all. Not at all. no stupid stuff, no going out to eat, no "oh my god, how did we spend all that money?"

Maybe...maybe I'm growing up.

(shudder)


So we now have -

$200 in paypal, ready to be transferred over to savings.
$150 in hsbc savings
$150 in checks we haven't deposited yet

Plus the escrow check and the money still left from the tax returns.

this feels really good. :)

Monday, February 05, 2007

New year already

It's hard to believe that it's February already! Amazing.

Money - well, things have actually been going well. I feel like I'm in some Suze Orman commercial - we stopped hanging on to money so tightly, and it started coming in more!

We sold a LOT on ebay right before Christmas. It was the biggest selling spree I've ever done on there. It's a slow time for sewing, so it was good.

We got a large tax return. Some may criticize, but it's a helluva lot better than having to pay in. We're splurging - we've bought tickets to Vegas in April. We haven't been on a vacation together in 8 years, and it's our 10th anniversary this summer. I'm so excited! And we got a great deal - 2 round trip tickets out of O'Hare, + 3 nights at Luxor, + a car for the whole time we're there = $700. That's $700 all together, not each. All we need is money for food & gambling!

We'll be able to put new tires on the truck, and we bought a new battery for the camcorder to take with us to Vegas. We went out to eat twice, and the rest will go into savings.

We're getting savings up to $750, and then extra money will go to the cc's. I'm so sick of them. They need to go.

Dh's social security court date was last week - our lawyer said that it went well, but from the questions the judge was asking, we will likely be refused. That's okay. It would have been nice, but we'll survive.

I have sewing prospects, which is fun. 2 wedding dresses + bridesmaids dresses. Plus I'm starting up on etsy.com with some of the girls' clothes I have ideas for. ebay is slow for sewing, so I hesitate to put things on there.

Let's see...money money money things. I'm planning to teach summer school again, which will help, also. dh and I agreed that we would keep some for fun/home improvement, but most to one of the cc's. We pay about $160 in interest alone each month. It's gotta go, man. Really.

It's cold here - school was cancelled today because of -40 wind chills, and we're already delayed 2 hours tomorrow. The Super Bowl was fun - love watching the Bears get beat. :) Hey, I'm from Wisconsin. It's allowed.